Cover image from Vashanth Selvadurai's PhD Thesis

PhD thesis by Vashanth Selvadurai: Transmedia Exhibition

In his Ph.D. thesis, Vashanth studies the use of transmedia experience in an exhibition context to identify key variables in design, implementation, and evaluation of the converging area of transmedia experiences and exhibitions.

Lagt online: 03.06.2019

Transmedia Exhibition. Exploring Production Criteria for a Transmedia Experience in an Exhibition Context

By Vashanth Selvadurai

The research was an industrial Ph.D. project partly funded by the Innovation Fund and has been carried out in collaboration with the Danish aqua zoo North Sea Oceanarium in Denmark. The host was Department of Communication & Psychology at Aalborg University, where the project was associated with the research centre Interactive Digital Media (InDiMedia) and Experience Design. This project was further associated with the national research program ‘Our Museum’, which consisted of 13 research projects in collaboration with five Danish universities and eight museums. Part of the research was conducted during the research stay at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) in Melbourne and at Griffith Film School (Griffith University) in Brisbane.

The area of interest was transmedia experience in an exhibition context, and the general purpose of the thesis was to investigate this domain. As such, the value sought was to generate new theory, methods, and techniques for designing, implementing, and evaluating an involving and educative transmedia experience in an exhibition context, which bridges the pre- and post-experience with the actual visit. This objective was formulated as the following research question.

What are the theoretical, methodical, and analytical conditions for designing, implementing, and evaluating an involving and educative transmedia experience in an exhibition context pre-, during- and post-visit?

Sequentially with the study of this, the aim was also to generate knowledge regarding the organisational implementation. As such, the research was conducted through active participation with practitioners in practice. The value sought was to identify key variables within the area of interest through a series of individual studies that collectively expands the existing body of knowledge. The scientific contribution to the domain extends into the field of exhibition design, experience design, and experience economy with a transmedia approach, which can be utilised in organisations that have a physical exhibition. Specifically, the generated knowledge covers a significant empty space in the scientific and practical arena of bringing a transmedia experience into an existing exhibition.

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